Book Clutch DIY Inspired by Olympia Le-Tan (Part 2)

Jun 30, 2012

Hey guys! This is the second and final part of my Olympia Le-Tan inspired book clutch series. This is the advanced version made totally from scratch that, in my opinion, most resembles the clutches made by the designer. Follow along to see how I made it and download a free template (at the bottom of the post) to make one of your own!

(To see the beginner and intermediate versions of the book clutch, click here.)

A Wrinkle in Time: design based on the original 1960s cover by Ellen Raskin

Cut out a large piece of canvas fabric (around 20 x 13″). Cut out the pink circle felt pieces from the template and the smaller circles and letters from paper and lay out your design on the back side of your fabric. Lay it on the left side so when you flip it over it will be on the correct side to cover the book. Trace around the letters and circles (after moving the felt piece out of the way).

This is how the front and back of the fabric should look. In this step, I have glued down the felt piece (after matching it up with the design on the back) and embroidered the title by hand.

Continue embroidering the circles, people and author. (As you can see from the finished product, I’m horribly bad at embroidery— sorry!)

After everything is embroidered, you’re going to turn this into a thicker book cloth so it’s easier to glue down. I followed this video tutorial on how to make your own (because real book cloth can be hard to find and a bit expensive, not to mention lacking in good color options). What you’re going to do here is take wonder under and iron it to the backside of your fabric (the side with the ugly threads), peel off the backing and then iron a piece of tissue paper on top. Now it’s ready to glue onto your board. Do this again with a small strip of white fabric (about 25 x 4″). This will be the sides of your clutch.

With your homemade white book cloth, tissue side up, lay out three pieces of chipboard/mat board in a straight line. The distance apart from one another should be the width of your chipboard (as shown in the photos). You’ll need two 5.25 x 1.5″ pieces and one 7.75 x 1.5″ piece, the larger piece in the middle. Glue down all three pieces with mod podge and let dry.

You’re then going to cut the fabric as shown above and then fold over and glue. Your sides of the clutch are finished.

Do the same thing with the book cover. You’ll need two pieces of board measuring 8.5 x 5.5″ and one piece 1.5 x 8.5″.

Now that your boards are covered, they’re ready to be glued together.

I added felt to the inside of the white book sides and then glued them to the cover. The insides will be smaller than the cover so it looks more like a book. I used E6000 glue for this part. First, I layed out the sides so I knew where they needed to be and traced along the inside of them on the cover so when I removed it to add the glue, I knew where to draw the line and not have any glue show on the outside. I glued that down and then cut a piece of felt to fit the inside bottom of the clutch and spine. Glue down just the bottom cover for now. Then I glued the edges of the sides to the spine (the small middle of the cover) and then the felt onto that. Things are coming together nicely, aren’t they? Now that the sides of your clutch are glued down and the felt is in place, cut another piece of felt for the top cover of the clutch and glue down.

We’re almost done! All we have to do is add the clasp. You can find mini clasps/hinges/box catches like this at hardware stores, but I found this little box at Michaels for $1 and figured I could just remove the clasp and save myself a trip to Home Depot. Using E6000, glue the hinge to the middle of the clutch— one part on the top cover and one part on the side.

10 Responses to Book Clutch DIY Inspired by Olympia Le-Tan (Part 2)

oh dangggg, that’s awesome! I’m still a bit huh?wtf? on how you made the glue not show…does it dry transparent? you think it’s better to use than hot glue?
cuz I have this feather I wanted to glue to a headband but didn’t want to use hot glue gun and so I was wondering if E6000 would be a better option. let me know!

Haha thanks! I was just careful not to put glue where it would show, like how I said to trace the sides on the cover— I only did a small line of glue there because even though it does dry transparent, I didn’t want any blobs showing. Everything else like gluing the fabric on the board and the felt on the fabric I used transparent drying mod modge. I think E6000 would be better than hot glue because it acts more like super glue and is really strong; also it isn’t as thick. For your headband, I’d say E6000 would work fine.